Yoga flexibility training tips

If you want to improve your flexibility by practicing yoga, the core is not "press your legs for half an hour every day" or "stretch your legs withstand the pain" as mentioned on the Internet. The essence is "progressive stimulation based on nerve relaxation first, muscle activation as supplement, and bone structure alignment as the basis." Moreover, the training logic of different schools is very different. There is no universal technique that suits everyone. It must match your own physical condition and practice goals to be useful.

When I first started to get involved in yoga, I stepped on a big hole. I stayed in the classroom for 20 minutes every day to press my legs for a quick split. My inner thighs were bruised and I walked with a limp. After three months, not only did the splits not go down, but even the sitting angle posture was more stuck than when I first started. Later, when I went to the Iyengar system teacher for evaluation, I found out that my right iliac bone had pronated by almost 1 centimeter. The force of the hard pressing before was not used at all to increase the mobility of the hip. It was all pulled on the ligaments. It was strange that it was not tight.

There are actually two mainstream views on flexibility training in the industry today, and no one can convince anyone. Most people who regularly practice Ashtanga and Vinyasa Yoga firmly believe that "strength is the basis of flexibility." Think about it, if your hip flexors are weak and you lean on your waist when doing forward bends, even if you can touch your toes, it is "fake flexibility". If you stop practicing for a week, you will immediately return to your original shape, and it is easy to injure your waist. However, teachers who practice yin yoga and restorative yoga do not believe this. They feel that the extension of deep connective tissue cannot rely on exerting force at all, but must rely on passive resting. Hold each movement for 3-5 minutes without deliberately exerting force, and let gravity carry the body slowly. On the contrary, it is much more efficient than dynamic stretching back and forth. I have two previous members, one of whom loves to run marathons and has muscular legs. According to the strength flow method, I first activated and then stretched, and my hamstring muscles became a lot looser in two months. ； The other is a girl who is thin and has very little muscle mass. She used the yin yoga method to passively open her hips for 20 minutes at a time, and she was able to do a full cross-body in three months. Both methods are actually correct. It depends on what suits you.

Oh, by the way, one of the most common misunderstandings that many people make is that "stretching has to hurt to be effective." The last time I gave an experience class, a girl frowned in pain when she pressed down a little while doing the seated angle pose. She gritted her teeth and tried to reach down. I touched her pelvic floor muscles with my hands. They were all hard and she even held her breath. At this time, the harder you exert, the more nervous your nerves will be. Instead, the muscles will contract protectively, making them tighter and tighter. A really useful tip is: as soon as you feel tingling or sharp pain when stretching, immediately return to a position where you feel a stretch but no pain at all, and take three slow abdominal breaths. When you inhale, expand your ribs to both sides, and when you exhale, consciously lower your pelvic floor muscles toward the ischium. Most of the time, you will find that the position that was originally stuck will suddenly loosen up after a few breaths, and there is no need to hold on.

Another point that is easily overlooked is that structural alignment is much more important than the duration of the pull. There was a member who used to follow online videos and bend his arms behind his back every day in order to open his shoulders. After practicing for half a year, not only did his shoulders not open, but he still felt pain when he raised his hand. He went to the hospital to find out that it was acromion impingement, and it took him several months to heal. In fact, her problem is that when she opens her shoulders, her shoulder blades are tilted up, and all the force is stuck in the shoulder joint seam, without stretching the tight pectoralis minor muscles at all. Later, I asked her to use Iyengar's props, stack two yoga bricks and put them under the shoulder blades, lie down with her arms open on both sides of her body, and only stop for 5 minutes at a time. After only two weeks of practice, she said that her shoulders were much looser and it no longer hurt when she raised her hands.

It’s interesting to say that when I practiced for almost 5 years, I was still obsessed with reaching the last level every time. Later, after chatting with a friend who does sports rehabilitation, I found out that many people’s tightness in the back of the legs is not due to poor flexibility. It is because sitting for a long time has stretched the hamstring muscles for a long time, and the muscles will become tight because of weakness. At this time, the more you stretch, the looser they will become. Instead, you need to practice strength first. I used to have a programmer member who had been sedentary for 8 years. He could only touch his knees when bending forward. I asked him to do 3 sets of single-leg deadlifts to activate his hamstring muscles before doing forward bending every time. Each set was 15 times. As soon as he finished doing forward bending, he directly touched his ankle. He was shocked and said that he had been pressing for so long in vain.

Nowadays, there are always videos on the Internet showing "10 minutes a day, a horizontal fork a week". Many novices ask me if it is reliable? In fact, it depends on the person. If you are born with good joint mobility and even a little ligament laxity, it is indeed possible, but if ordinary people practice blindly, they will most likely get strained. I have been in contact with a girl before, who followed a quick video on the Internet to practice cross-split for 7 days, and her medial ligament was torn in the second degree. It took more than three months to be able to walk normally, which in turn delayed her practice. There is really no need to pursue speed. If you spend three months slowly opening it up and maintaining stability without rebounding, it is much more cost-effective than opening it up in one week and then being injured for half a year.

I have been practicing yoga for almost 8 years now, but I seldom stress my flexibility. I spend 10 minutes before each class to rotate my shoulders, hips, and ankles. It depends on the physical condition of the day. Sometimes I am in good shape after enough sleep and can easily do a full cross. Sometimes I stayed up late the day before and was on my period. My hips are so tight that I can only open the seated angle pose to 90 degrees, and I don’t force myself. After all, flexibility training is, to put it bluntly, a process of dialogue with your body. Those techniques and methods are all auxiliary. Your ability to understand the signals given by your body is more important than anything else.